Drunk Driving: Relatively Harmless

If we're ever going to get laws passed prohibiting cellphone use while driving, I think that has to become the new rallying cry. "If you're at the legal limit, go ahead and drive! A .08 BAC is no worse than chatting on a hands-free set with grandma! That's totally legal, so how bad could drunk driving possibly be!?"

Seriously. It's great that my BFFs at the NHTSA (I got tons of data for my seat belt paper from them) have finally released research showing the dangers of talking while driving, but it's been obvious for years that cellphone conversations in the car are dangerous, and the danger has nothing to do with your hands. It's all in your head, baby. We learned that in Brian Scholl's cog sci class in 2004, and I don't think the research was all that cutting-edge then.

My fellow Americans, look to your left. Look to your right. Now do that another forty-one times with new neighbors. One of those people will die in a motor vehicle accident. Wouldn't it be nice to lower that number just a bit? Doesn't everyone deserve the right to waste away from cancer of some-organ-you-never-knew-you-had at age ninety seven? I think so. (If you are not one of my fellow Americans, you can attempt to infer the number of requisite head turns from this.)

I know, it would be extremely inconvenient never to talk on a cellphone in the car. You know what else is inconvenient? Being stuck somewhere at 3 am with nobody sober to drive, a completely incompetent taxi service, and a house only four miles away. But pretty much everyone knows that driving in that situation is just not acceptable. Certainly they all would if they had seen my award-winning fourth grade safety poster: "Drink and Drive? You won't be alive!" Unfortunately my fifth grade effort—"Don't fall for drugs," with a picture of a blindfolded girl plummeting onto upturned syringes—lost to Mona (then Bonnie) Weiss's poster about not petting wild animals. There are some losses I may never accept, but I'll gladly that concede Mona deserved that victory.

Oh, and I think I'm going to TA an undergrad class next year. I'm getting pretty excited about it, even though it's going to be a huge time suck and will prevent me from taking a class I wanted. I really need to try teaching at some point, so this should be a good way to accomplish that.

Natalie comes tomorrow! Yay! And it's also my last day at the court, which will be spent entirely on my paper for school.

Here's the YouTube video of the week. Video's pretty much safe for work. Audio's not. Enjoy trying not to sing the song to yourself in public.